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Oscar-nominated shorts kick off next round of Sundance Screening Room

It’s been a long wait, since early October if I recall correctly. The Sundance Cinemas Screening Room schedule, featuring independent, foreign and documentary films showing exempt from the usual amenities fees, has been on a long hiatus to make room for all the big fall and holiday releases.

But it’s back.

The first round of Screening Room films kicks off next Friday, Feb. 8 with screenings of all 15 Oscar-nominated short films. You’ll be able to see the five shorts nominated for live-action in one screening, and the five nominated for Best Animated Short at another, all that week. Plus, just for the weekend of Feb. 8, audiences can see all five films nominated for Best Documentary Short.

After that, we can look forward to new films from Werner Herzog and Abbas Kiarostami, a new documentary on hunger from the producers of “Food Inc,” and Charlie Sheen’s unlikely cinematic comeback. Here’s how the rest of the upcoming Screening Room calendar shakes out, which will bring us up to early April:

“The Other Son” (Feb. 15) — Two boys discover they were switched at birth. The kicker? One is Israeli, the other Palestinian in this French drama.

“A Place at the Table” (March 1) — A documentary from the producers of “Food, Inc.” about the hunger crisis that lets millions of Americans go underfed, and offers specific solutions to the problem.

“Happy People: A Year in the Taiga” (March 8) — The latest documentary from Werner Herzog looks at a small band of indigenous people living in Siberia whose lives haven’t changed in the last century, and, as the title suggests, are just fine with that.

“Barbara” (March 15) — An East German doctor hoping to flee the country in the 1980s is banished to a small rural hospital in this acclaimed drama.

“Any Day Now” (March 22) — A gay couple (Alan Cumming and Garret Dillahunt) fight the legal system to keep custody of a mentally-challenged teenager who they have taken in off the streets.

“Like Someone in Love‘ (March 29) — The latest film from master Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (“Certified Copy”) looks at the relationship between an old man and a young woman in Japan.